The ladies masters athletes from the SMTFA competing at the Flash Athletic Meet in Oct at the Bishan Stadium.

3/17/2010

What arrogance of strength?

China had many embarrassing and humiliating experiences with arrogance of strength in the past. The British sold the Chinese opium only to be confiscated and burnt by the Chinese. They declared war on that ground, raided China, demanded indemnity for war raparation and the opium, including seizure of Hongkong. That was arrogance of the British Empire.
The Americans followed by demanding that 5 ports be opened as free ports. Another arrogance of strength. Then the rest of the wolf pack consisting mainly Europeans powers, plus Russia and Japan followed to designate Chinese territories as their territories. That was arrogance of strength.
Today, the American signed a defence treaty with a renegade defeated political party in Taiwan and insisted that they have now a legal right to arm and defend Taiwan. This is arrogance of strength in modern day. And the Americans and British cooked up the threats of WMD to invade Iraq and murdered its President, turned the country into a war zone, and getting away free without anyone daring to whisper a word about war crimes. And better still, dragging all its weak allies to help in the killings of the Iraqis. This is arrogance of strength.
Is China exhibiting an arrogance of weakness? In the first place it was not even arrogance but standing up to the number one bully. You call that arrogance? Bloody fool! And China is weak? The whole of Europe can join forces and do a 8 Nations attack on Beijing today, like they did before, and see if China is weak.
The US can also try to test how weak China is today. Between the two, I must admit that China is very much weaker. But it is not that weak for the US to attempt to be adventurous.

The civil war in China was a very sad chapter of Chinese history. China was a broken up country and it was lucky that the western poweres could not agree on how to divide up China among themselves. Otherwise there would be no China today.

The civil war pitted the selfish and politically apathetic decadent rich against the penniless poor who had nothing except a few stripes of tattered rags on their bodies. They were fighting for the right to live a more decent life.

The cultural revolution had nothing to do with arrogance but a poor populace trying to reinvent themselves from the ruins of a decadent and bankrupt past. They thought a clean start could be the way to move forward. Destruction was the mother of a new China.

Historians may disagree on the pros and cons of the cultural revolution towards the building of a new China today.

June 4, 1989 was a different issue altogether, complicated by foreign agitation.

The arrogance of strength of Deng and his hardline supporters and the arrogance of strength of the student leaders led to the final crash and June 4th. They could have put their arrogance aside and resolved the situation peacefully instead of using force. What "foreign agitation"? So Chinese are weak minded and under the infleunce of "foreign agitation"?

Cultural Revolution was a pure act of Mao exercising his arrogance of strength to grab power and remove the rivals among his comrads. Only the ignorant Red Guards swallowed those propaganda about "a clean start could be the way to move forward. Destruction was the mother of a new China."

The June 4th Incident was another bloody massacre in China's history. No bloodshed against once citizens can be justified by killings.

What would happen to China if the unrest was not quelled? Anybody's guess. China today is something the Chinese themselves are very proud of, except for some minority views. They used to have Chinese escaping from China seeking political asylum. Today, other than a few political dissidents, the successful Chinese are returning. And Chinese are free to emigrate if they wanted to.

People will have different views of June 4th. History will be the best judge of what is good or bad for China.

In your own words you said In turn the Chinese are sweating it out in the factories to make the products for pittance and only to sell them cheaply to the American families. How atrocious can the Chinese be? Working so very hard to earn a bowl of rice on the table to enable the Americans to pay cheaply for their hard work. It is sinful!

Now please explain why you think the Chinese you described above will think China today is something the Chinese themselves are very proud of

History will be the best judge of what is good or bad for China.

Didn't LKY said something similar regarding his legacy?

What you said sound much like how die-hard PAP supporters say to justify all PAP has done.

It is wrong to try to hide behind this speculation of What would happen to China if the unrest was not quelled?

June 4th could have been avoided if not for the arrogance of Deng and his hard-line supporters.

If CCP is not that corrupt, there would not have protest? If Deng and his hard-line supporters reflected and acknowledged the corrupting nature of CCP and showed determination to clean up, the protest would not have turned into confrontation and then June 4th.

Hi Salary, when you read redbean's post, you must read it carefully and understand the nuances. Your simple mind approach to his post will lead you to barking up the wrong tree.

And why are you so certain that 'If Deng and his hard-line supporters reflected and acknowledged the corrupting nature of CCP and showed determination to clean up, the protest would not have turned into confrontation and then June 4th.'?

An indication of the Chinese being happy with their govt, there are exceptions of course, is that many of the successful ones are returning home from Europe and America. Even the less educated ones that are here, quite a number are here only for the money, but will return home. China is their home. If they are unhappy, they would stay outside.

As for 'hiding' behind this speculation of What would happen to China if the unrest was not quelled? I must confess that I am just an ordinary man and would not know for certain what would happen.

Perhaps you have the ability to know what would happen. I admire your confidence to know what would happen in a iffy scenario.

In the case of agreeing with LKY on history will be the judge, I think that is a fair statement. Here history is about the future generation's judgement, rightly or wrongly. Not the present people or interested people.

You may disagree with that, as you have already judged. That's your freedom to do so.

The happenings in the Ang Mo Kio Town Council are outrageous. I am not going to elaborate as the details are everywhere. The similarities be...

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As owner of this blog, I bear no responsibility to what other contributors/bloggers may post. I encourage all to speak freely without indulging in libel or defamatory content. Anyone who feels offended by any posting can email me and I will remove the offending article if appropriate. Contact me at redbeansg@yahoo.com